Midway through their wildly successful first season in the National Hockey League, the Vegas Golden Knights have run into a problem off the ice. And it is very nearly the exact dispute the team’s majority owner appears to have tried — at least somewhat — to avoid.

The owner, Bill Foley, is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, whose athletic teams have long competed as the Army Black Knights. Mr. Foley had initially hoped to call his new hockey team the Black Knights but encountered resistance, including some from West Point.

So he went with Golden Knights instead — but now, it seems, that wasn’t enough.

The Army, it turns out, has a parachute team known as the Golden Knights. And when the hockey franchise unveiled its name in November 2016, West Point officials took note, saying they were “reviewing the situation and figuring out what the way ahead would be.”

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Members of the Army’s Golden Knights parachute team delivered the game ball before the Ohio State-Army football game on Sept. 16.CreditStaff Sgt. Michael Carden/Ohio National Guard

On Wednesday, Army officials signaled that the way ahead is formal opposition; they filed notice in the United States Patent and Trademark Office that asks its board to refuse to register the hockey team’s trademark application for “Vegas Golden Knights.”

In the filings, an Army lawyer argued that its parachute team’s Golden Knights name is both famous and “symbolic of the extensive good will and public recognition established by the United States Army.”

The lawyer wrote that the hockey team’s name and mark are “confusingly similar in sound, meaning and appearance” to its own, that the team’s similar color scheme adds to the “likelihood of confusion,” and that the Army would be damaged if the mark is registered because it would “falsely suggest a connection” between the Army and the hockey team.

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The shoulder patch recognizing the Golden Knights parachute team.

In a statement, the hockey organization said: “We strongly dispute the Army’s allegations that confusion is likely between the Army Golden Knights parachute team and the Vegas Golden Knights major-league hockey team.”

“Indeed, the two entities have been coexisting without any issues for over a year,” the statement continued, “and we are not aware of a single complaint from anyone attending our games that they were expecting to see the parachute team and not a professional hockey game.”

The hockey team noted in its statement that other Golden Knights trademark owners had also coexisted with the Army without problems. (Reports say that the hockey team cleared its name with Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., which uses the Golden Knights name, as well as the University of Central Florida.)

After the Army’s concerns first surfaced in November 2016, Mr. Foley told The Las Vegas Review-Journal the team did not check with the Army on the name Golden Knights because “our lawyers and the N.H.L.’s lawyers didn’t feel we needed to.”

“I have great respect for the Golden Knights parachute team,” he added in his interview with the newspaper. “In fact, I tried to incorporate them into the ceremony last week, but we couldn’t make it work.”

Mr. Foley did not appear to specify why.

The off-ice dispute disrupts what has otherwise been a smooth and surprisingly hot start to the hockey team’s inaugural season. Despite being an expansion team, the Golden Knights have somehow managed to climb to the top of their division and position themselves for a run in the playoffs.

One reason for the team’s success is its near perfect record at home in Las Vegas; as of Thursday, the team had won 18 games on home ice while losing only twice and losing in a shootout once. Some have speculated that the Golden Knights have been aided there by the “Vegas flu” — a malady that infects opposing players who stay out later than they would in other cities, gambling or seeing a show.

For their part, the Army’s Golden Knights say they have earned 2,148 gold, 1,117 silver, and 693 bronze medals in national and international competition.

In fact, the Army’s website says the accolades influenced how the team chose its name decades ago: “Golden” stood for the gold medals the team had won and “Knights” conveyed the team’s ambition “to conquer the skies.”

Correction:Jan. 12, 2018

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the record for the Vegas Golden Knights. They did not tie one game at home; they lost that game in a shootout.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Army Signals Its Intent to Dispute Trademark for Name of Golden Knights. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe